Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna of Russia (born Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg, 8 July 1830 – 6 July 1911) was the fifth daughter of
Joseph, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg
Joseph Georg Friedrich Ernst Karl, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg (27 August 1789, in Hildburghausen – 25 November 1868, in Altenburg), was a Duke of Saxe-Altenburg.
Biography
He was the second but first surviving son of Frederick, Duke of Saxe-Hildb ...
and
Duchess Amelia of Württemberg
Duchess Amelia of Württemberg (; 28 June 179928 November 1848) was a Duchess of Württemberg and an ancestor of the British, Greek, Romanian, Yugoslavian and Spanish Royal Families.
She was a daughter of Duke Louis of Württemberg and Princess He ...
. She is an ancestress of the British, Greek, Romanian, Yugoslav, and Spanish Royal Families through her elder daughter Olga. She was a paternal first cousin of
Princess Pauline of Württemberg
Princess is a regal rank and the feminine equivalent of prince (from Latin ''princeps'', meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or for the daughter of a king or prince.
Princess as a subst ...
, as well as her maternal second cousin. Via that link, those six people (
Frederick II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg
Friedrich Eugen, Duke of Württemberg (21 January 1732 – 23 December 1797) was the fourth son of Karl Alexander, Duke of Württemberg, and Princess Maria Augusta of Thurn and Taxis (11 August 1706 – 1 February 1756). He was born in Stut ...
,
Princess Friederike of Brandenburg-Schwedt
Friederike of Brandenburg-Schwedt (Friederike Sophia Dorothea; 18 December 1736 – 9 March 1798) was Duchess of Württemberg by marriage to Frederick II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg. She is an ancestor to many European royals of the 19th and ...
,
Ernest Frederick III, Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen
Ernest Frederick III Karl, Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen (10 June 1727 in Königsberg in Bayern – 23 September 1780 in Seidingstadt), was a duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen.
Biography
Ernest Frederick was born on 10 June 1727. He was the eldest s ...
,
Princess Ernestine of Saxe-Weimar
Princess Ernestine Auguste Sophie of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (4 January 1740, in Weimar10 June 1786, in Hildburghausen) was a princess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and by marriage Duchess of Saxe-Hildburghausen.
Life
Ernestine Auguste Sophie was a dau ...
,
Charles II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and
Princess Friederike of Hesse-Darmstadt
Princess Friederike Caroline Luise of Hesse-Darmstadt (20 August 1752 – 22 May 1782) was a member of the House of Hesse and by marriage a Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
She is the direct most recent common matrilineal ancestress (through ...
), are ancestors of almost every single royal family in Europe (exceptions being Liechtenstein and Monaco).
Early life
![Stieler Alexandra Iosifovna](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Stieler_Alexandra_Iosifovna.jpg)
Alexandra's parents were married on 24 April 1817, at Kirchheim unter Teck. Alexandra had five sisters:
Marie
Marie may refer to:
People Name
* Marie (given name)
* Marie (Japanese given name)
* Marie (murder victim), girl who was killed in Florida after being pushed in front of a moving vehicle in 1973
* Marie (died 1759), an enslaved Cree person in Tr ...
, Pauline, Henriette,
Elisabeth, and Luise.
Alexandra's portrait was painted by the fashionable court artist
Joseph Karl Stieler
Joseph Karl Stieler (1 November 1781 – 9 April 1858) was a German painter. From 1820 until 1855 he worked as royal court painter of the Bavarian kings. He is known for his Neoclassical portraits, especially for the Gallery of Beauties at N ...
.
Marriage and issue
In the summer of 1846, she met
Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia
Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia (21 September 1827 – 25 January 1892) was the Emperor's Viceroy of Poland from 1862 to 1863.
Early life
Konstantin Nikolayevich was born as the second son of Nicholas I and his wife, Charlotte ...
when he visited
Altenburg. He was the second son of
Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia, and
Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, née Princess Charlotte of Prussia.
Konstantin stayed for a few days at Alexandra’s father’s castle. His visit there had been arranged by Alexandra’s aunt,
Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, who had been born Princess Charlotte of Württemberg. Elena and Alexandra's mother were both descended from
Frederick II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg
Friedrich Eugen, Duke of Württemberg (21 January 1732 – 23 December 1797) was the fourth son of Karl Alexander, Duke of Württemberg, and Princess Maria Augusta of Thurn and Taxis (11 August 1706 – 1 February 1756). He was born in Stut ...
. Elena was married to
Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich, the younger brother of Tsar Nicholas I. Elena Pavlovna was therefore Konstantin’s aunt by marriage and Alexandra’s aunt by birth. Elena was a strong influence over Konstantin, who admired her intellect and progressive views. She had literary interests and was musical, founding the
St Petersburg Conservatoire, and the young Konstantin often spent time at Elena's home and salon in
St Petersburg.
Konstantin was intellectual and liberal, whereas Alexandra was conservative and rather high spirited. Although their temperaments differed, they both shared an interest in music, and enjoyed playing duets at the piano. Konstantin was captivated by Alexandra's youthful beauty: she being tall, slender and attractive. He quickly became besotted, and was eager to marry her "I don't know what is happening to me. It is as if I am a completely new person. Just one thought moves me, just one image fills my eyes: forever and only she, my angel, my universe. I really do think I’m in love. However, what can it mean? I've only know her just a few hours and I'm already up to my ears in Passion". She was only sixteen and Konstantin nineteen; they were engaged but had to wait two more years before they could finally marry.
Alexandra arrived in Russia on 12 October 1847, and was greeted by much fanfare and popular celebration, with jubilant crowds lining the streets and balconies. It was said that Alexandra looked so much like her fiance's sister, the
Grand Duchess Alexandra Nikolayevna, who died in childbirth, that her prospective mother-in-law burst into tears at their first meeting.
In February 1848, Alexandra converted to Russian Orthodoxy, taking the name of Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna, which reflected her father's name ''Joseph'' (unlike many princesses she took a patronymic, choosing to reflect her parentage rather than the usual religious or dynastic associations which was also possible because Iosif was a common name in Russia).
Alexandra and Konstantin were married in the
Winter Palace
The Winter Palace ( rus, Зимний дворец, Zimnij dvorets, p=ˈzʲimnʲɪj dvɐˈrʲɛts) is a palace in Saint Petersburg that served as the official residence of the Russian Emperor from 1732 to 1917. The palace and its precincts now ...
in
St Petersburg, on 11 September 1848. Konstantin received the
Marble Palace
Marble Palace (Мраморный дворец) is one of the first Neoclassical palaces in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is situated between the Field of Mars and Palace Quay, slightly to the east from New Michael Palace.
Design and pre-1917 o ...
in St Petersburg as a wedding gift from his parents.
Strelna
Strelna ( rus, Стре́льна, p=ˈstrʲelʲnə) is a municipal settlement in Petrodvortsovy District of the federal city of Saint Petersburg, Russia, about halfway between Saint Petersburg proper and Petergof, and overlooking the shore o ...
on the Gulf of Finland, which Konstantin inherited when aged four, was the wedded couple's country retreat. The lively Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna took a particular interest in the grounds at Strelna, establishing a free school of gardening, where she taught classes herself. There were also educational toys for the children: a wooden mast and trampoline for gymnastics, and the transplanted cabin of one of Konstantin’s frigates.
A year after their marriage Konstantin inherited the
Pavlovsk Palace
Pavlovsk Palace (russian: Павловский дворец) is an 18th-century Russian Imperial residence built by the order of Catherine the Great for her son Grand Duke Paul, in Pavlovsk, within Saint Petersburg. After his death, ...
, situated 19 miles to the south of St Petersburg, from his uncle Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich. The public was admitted to the fine park in its grounds. The Grand-Ducal family supported an impressive concert hall situated at Pavlovsk station, which proved popular with the middle classes, and attracted names such as
Johann Strauss II,
Franz Liszt, and
Hector Berlioz.
Alexandra and Konstantin later acquired the palace of
Oreanda
Oreanda (Ukrainian and Russian: Ореанда; crh, Oreanda) is an urban-type settlement in the Yalta Municipality of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, a territory recognized by a majority of countries as part of Ukraine and annexed by Russia ...
in Crimea, which had originally been built by
Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna and left to her second son for his retirement.
Konstantin and Alexandra had 6 children:
#
Nikolai Konstantinovich
Grand Duke Nicholas Constantinovich of Russia (14 February 1850 – 26 January 1918) was the first-born son of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich and Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna of Russia and a grandson of Nicholas I of Russia.
Early life ...
(1850–1918); married 1882, Nadejda Alexandrovna von Dreyer.
#
Olga Konstantinovna, Queen of the Hellenes (1851–1926); married 1867,
George I of Greece
George I ( Greek: Γεώργιος Α΄, ''Geórgios I''; 24 December 1845 – 18 March 1913) was King of Greece from 30 March 1863 until his assassination in 1913.
Originally a Danish prince, he was born in Copenhagen, and seemed destined for ...
and is a grandmother of
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, later Philip Mountbatten; 10 June 1921 – 9 April 2021) was the husband of Queen Elizabeth II. As such, he served as the consort of the British monarch from E ...
.
#
Vera Konstantinovna (1854–1912); married 1874,
Duke Eugen of Württemberg.
#
Konstantin Konstantinovich (1858–1915); married 1884,
Princess Elisabeth of Saxe-Altenburg.
#
Dmitry Konstantinovich
Dmitri Konstantinovich of Suzdal (russian: Дми́трий Константи́нович Су́здальский) (1323–1383) was a powerful Prince of Suzdal and Nizhny Novgorod who dominated Russian politics during the minority of his so ...
(1860–1919); died unmarried.
#
Vyacheslav Konstantinovich (1862–1879); died unmarried.
Family crisis
![Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg with five of her children](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Princess_Alexandra_of_Saxe-Altenburg_with_five_of_her_children.jpg)
In 1867, Alexandra's eldest daughter,
Olga, married King
George I of Greece
George I ( Greek: Γεώργιος Α΄, ''Geórgios I''; 24 December 1845 – 18 March 1913) was King of Greece from 30 March 1863 until his assassination in 1913.
Originally a Danish prince, he was born in Copenhagen, and seemed destined for ...
. She was only sixteen, and Konstantin was initially reluctant for her to marry so young. In July 1868, Olga's first child was born and was named Konstantin after his grandfather. The beginning of their daughter's family coincided with the start of the breakdown of Alexandra and Konstantin's marriage.
Although he was only forty, Konstantin's struggles and travails of the previous decade— naval and judiciary reforms, the freeing of the serfs—had prematurely aged him. As his brother
Tsar Alexander II
Alexander II ( rus, Алекса́ндр II Никола́евич, Aleksándr II Nikoláyevich, p=ɐlʲɪˈksandr ftɐˈroj nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ; 29 April 181813 March 1881) was Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Fin ...
turned away from the reform that had marked his first decade on the throne, Konstantin's influence began to wane and he began to focus more on his personal life. After twenty years of marriage he had drifted away from his wife. Konstantin's heavy workload, and the couple's divergent political views and interests had over the years slowly torn away at their relationship. Alexandra was as conservative as her husband was liberal, and she had learnt to concern herself with her own society and mysticism. Soon, Konstantin turned elsewhere for sexual intimacy.
[King and Wilson, p.39.]
At the end of the 1860s, Konstantin embarked on an affair and conceived an illegitimate daughter, Marie Condousso. In the 1880s, Marie was sent to Greece, later serving as lady in waiting to her half sister, Queen Olga. Marie eventually married a Greek banker.
Soon after the birth of Marie, Konstantin began a new liaison. Around 1868, Konstantin began to pursue Anna Vasilyevna Kuznetsova, a young dancer from the St Petersburg Conservatoire. She was the illegitimate daughter of ballerina Tatyana Markyanovna Kuznetsova and actor Vasily Andreyevich Karatygin. Anna was twenty years younger than Konstantin and in 1873 she gave birth to their first child. Four more would follow.
Konstantin bought his mistress a large, comfortable dacha on his estate at Pavlovsk; thereby lodging his second family in close proximity to Alexandra, whom he now referred to as his "government–issue wife". By this act Konstantin gave ammunition to his political enemies, with Russian society reacting to the scandal by siding with his suffering wife, Alexandra, who tried to bear his infidelity with dignity.
In 1874, fresh scandal erupted when it was discovered that Alexandra and Konstantin's eldest son,
Grand Duke Nikolay Konstantinovich, who had lived a dissipated life and had revolutionary ideas, had stolen three valuable diamonds from an icon in Alexandra's private bedroom, aided by his mistress, an American courtesan. Alexandra's twenty-four-year-old son was found guilty, declared insane, and banished for life to
Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
. Alexandra suffered another bitter blow when in 1879, her youngest son, Vyacheslav, died unexpectedly from a
brain haemorrhage
Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as cerebral bleed, intraparenchymal bleed, and hemorrhagic stroke, or haemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain, into its ventricles, or into both. It is one kind of bleed ...
.
Husband's illness and death
![5generationsroyales](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/5generationsroyales.jpg)
In June 1889, Alexandra’s 18-year-old granddaughter,
Princess Alexandra of Greece, returned to Russia to marry
Grand Duke Paul, who was the younger brother of
Tsar Alexander III
Alexander III ( rus, Алекса́ндр III Алекса́ндрович, r=Aleksandr III Aleksandrovich; 10 March 18451 November 1894) was Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland from 13 March 1881 until his death in 18 ...
. Towards the end of the wedding celebrations, Konstantin suffered a stroke. This was followed in August 1889 by a severe stroke, which left him unable to walk or speak.
For the remaining three years of his life Konstantin lived with his wife in her favourite palace Pavlovsk, having a wing of the building to himself. He was confined to a bath chair, and Alexandra saw to it that Konstantin was denied contact with his mistress and illegitimate offspring.
[Zeepvat, p.75.]
Alexandra’s grandson,
Christopher of Greece, wrote in his memoirs that Konstantin became so frustrated with being under Alexandra’s control that he one day grabbed her by the hair and beat her with his stick.
Seeing as Christopher would have only been four years old at the time of Konstantin’s death, it is difficult to know the full truth of this story.
Despite his illness, Konstantin tried to amuse himself as best he could. His grand-nephew
Cyril Vladimirovich remembered skating parties at Pavlovsk, where Konstantin would watch from his sledge, and how he always "smelt of cigars".
[Kirill, p.17.] Cyril found Alexandra a formidable woman, with her "high pitched voice....driving about in an open carriage with a kind of awning over it, which could be opened and closed like an umbrella. I have never seen anything quite the same anywhere else, and think that she was the only person in the world who had such an ingenious cover to her carriage".
[Kirill, p.18.]
When Konstantin died, in January 1892, Alexandra arranged for his mistress Anna to visit Pavlovsk and pray at Konstantin’s bedside.
Archives
Alexandra's letters to her daughter, Queen Olga of Greece, between 1867 and 1877 are preserved in the "Aleksandra Iosifovna letters to Queen Olga of Greece" collection in the Hoover Institution Archives (Stanford, California, USA).
Alexandra's letters to
Princess Florestine of Monaco
Princess Florestine Gabrielle Antoinette of Monaco (22 October 1833 – 4 April 1897) was the youngest child and only daughter of Florestan I, Prince of Monaco, and his wife, Maria Caroline Gibert de Lametz. Florestine was a member of the Hous ...
, written between 1873 and 1879, are preserved in the State Archive of Stuttgart (Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart) in Stuttgart, Germany.
Ancestry
Notes
Bibliography
*King, Greg, and Wilson, Penny. ''Gilded Prism''. Eurohistory, 2006.
*Zeepvat, Charlotte. ''Romanov Autumn''. Sutton Publishing, 2000.
*Kirill Vladimirovich, Grand Duke. ''My Life in Russia’s Service''. London: Selwyn and Blount, 1939.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alexandra Iosifovna Of Altenburg
1830 births
1911 deaths
People from Altenburg
People from Saxe-Altenburg
Princesses of Saxe-Altenburg
Russian grand duchesses by marriage
House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov
House of Saxe-Altenburg
German people of English descent
German people of Dutch descent
German people of Austrian descent
German people of Hungarian descent
Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy from Lutheranism
Burials at Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral, Saint Petersburg